Adventures in Time and Space: the Doctor Who RPG - Review

 So, this weekend was really, really, really long.  I’m taking a break from my standard book reviews and reviewing…a book. Namely, the Sourcebook(s) for the Doctor Who RPG, Adventures in Time and Space.  I picked up the Eleventh Doctor Edition, because, I mean, Eleven.

"I wear a bow-tie now.  Bow ties are cool."

I came downstairs to sit at the dining room table and write and roll dice, a clump of Doctor Who RPG Sourcebooks under my arm.  My housemate Jay, sitting on the couch looked up from his laptop, noticing my armload.  “So how is it?”

I marshaled my thoughts.  “It’s…actually really good, to be honest.  In the right setting.  It doesn’t really work for playing magical characters or finessed swordfighters or…time travelers, but for simple, non-complex games it works really well.

I like the Stats here much better than the ones for D&D to be honest.

Like, you’ve got the six attributes¹ and twelve skills, you add your flat attribute and skill and roll 2d6 and boom, that’s what you get for everything.  But it’s kinda cool, like, if you beat the Difficulty by enough you get bonuses (you’re able to hack the computer AND the files are organized easily).  But if you fail by a little, it’s not too bad (You don’t hack it, but you can try again).  But if you fail by a lot, it’s bad AND it gets worse.  (You don’t hack the computer, and it activates a silent alarm that alerts the guards to your location.)”

“That’s…pretty cool.”

“Right?  Like I said, it works really well for simple things.  I mean, look at this character sheet.”

The back has more or less all the actions you can do, which
is really useful for quick play.

Jay squinted at it.  “Kinda sparse.”

“Yeah. There’s only twelve skills.  Which is cool, I mean, I love D&D, but…there’s a lot to keep track of.  Here there’s like, just Attributes and Skills.  Oh and gadgets and stuff.  But yeah, with the skills, you can specialize if you have enough ranks.  So, at Knowledge<4>² I can Specialize in History and Literature, and I get bonuses to any Knowledge check involving books or history.  Same for Convince, I can Specialize in Bluff or Intimidate or things.

Wouldn't it be cool to see Medusa vs. The Weeping Angels?

So say I’m hacking a computer on a Spaceship piloted by Not!Medusa³, I just add Ingenuity + Technology + 2d6, and I add +2 because Medusa’s all mythological and shit, and I’ve read enough books to know how Medusa works. Say the DC’s 15. Rolled 6. So 4+2+6+2⁴.  14.  Not good enough.  But, it’s not all bad.”

“You wouldn’t get in, but you could see file names and things and learn something?”

“Exactly.  The Dungeon Master…Storyteller, whatever, could give you enough info to get on with the story.  Wait, damn, I’d probably take negs because Space Medusa is from a different technology level.  There’s negs for using tech not from your general time-period.  So I can’t use things as easily from beyond Space-Faring Tech Level, since that’s the modern day, you take a -2 per tech level.  It’s less for things before now, only -1 per tech level, because history, we kinda know it.”

“Are there feats?”

“Traits.  That’s kinda a problem, actually.  There need to be a few more of them, they’re kinda sparse and either don’t do much (like, they only give ±2 to skills) or they give you Telekinesis.  You can substitute Telekinesis for any physical challenge, so if your Resolve is high enough you basically you get to win at everything.  Fighting, running, lock-picking…”

“Arson, Weddings, Art…”

“Shush you.”

Miriah, on the couch, chimed in, “I mean, weddings could be physical challenges…”

Madame Vastra resents your implication of Impropriety.
They are Married.

Jay smiled.  “You know, a Silurian wedding without at least three deaths is deemed a dull affair.” ⁵

“Anyway, it’s kinda ridiculous.  I’d make people spend story-points to activate it, balance things out.”

“Story Points?”

“Basically move-the-plot-along coupons.  You can spend them to make things happen in your favor or, oh this is the cool thing, make things go wrong for you to gain storypoints for later use.  Like, getting captured so you can get the plot going would net you some storypoints to use to make one of the Guards susceptible to your diplomacy.

“I like that.”

"I was dressed for GURPS!"

“Right?  I was kinda sad it doesn’t give some mystical secrets of how to make Time Travel work in an RPG.  I figured it should.  I mean, it’s Doctor Who.  It kinda brings it up, but then it diverts to Time Travel Theory and then rushes it back offscreen.  Oh well.  But yeah, for a simple game, for the right kind of game, it’s pretty brilliant.  It places a lot of weight and trust on the Players and the DM, with the story-points, but I mean, it’s not too heavy.  It’s more about storytelling than winning.  Although, the sourcebook’s kinda annoying, it's all like "HI I’M AMY POND LET ME TAKE UP HALF A PAGE."  So yeah, I kinda want a non picture-having version of this, with less in-jokes.⁶ Because without those it’s just fine.  I’d run a game with it.  I mean, if you use the online tool making a character takes 10 minutes, tops.”

"Sounds neat.  You should leave it on the counter so I can read through it.  Oh, also, I think you'd like this Kickstarter.  It’s called Odin’s Ravens and it’s –”

“Wait, hang on, Facebook it to me.  I’m gonna go write down the conversation so that I can turn it into a blog.”⁷  

“Okay.  And after that you should teach me how to make footnotes appear when you talk.”

“Witchcraft.”  I winked and rushed to type everything up before I forgot it.

Tolkien-Pulp: A review of Wytchfire by Michael Meyerhoffer

So I just finished reading/livetweeting Wytchfire by Michael Meyerhoffer.²  I'm not going to lie, when I was googling the book, I was somewhat hesitant, skeptical.  There's this section at any bookstore just labeled "Sci-fi/Fantasy" where all the books seem to be the same, and you kinda feel like not reading them as quickly as possible.  There's a certain ghetto happening here, the Sci-fi/Fantasy ghetto at it's worst.  Sure, there's fantasy out there that gets popular enough to rise above the ghetto, but they seem often few and far between.  It's not a genre people take seriously, mostly because people assume there's no inherent worth.  It probably also has to do with the cultural ostracization of D&D, and all of its trappings, into the "Other" category.  The "Standard D&D universe" has, thanks mostly to Tolkien³, been so thoroughly ingrained in the cultural consciousness that most people can tell you the rules without having actually read a high-fantasy pulp book.

I actually know who all these characters are and what
they're doing.  #Dragonlance.

Everyone knows that Dwarves are stout and beardy, Elves are pretty and magical and live in forests, Knights are noble and always do the right thing, magic comes at a price, and the orphan stableboy turns out to be the long lost heir of the kingdom.  The Undead or Dragons show up to cause problems and the hero saves the day and no one points out that he should probably be dead from all the diseases that would come of fighting shambling undead, or burned to a crisp from Dragon fire.  And that's 1st Wave Tolkien-Pulp.

This persisted for a while until people started subverting those tropes, until 1st Wave Tolkien Pulp became ghettoized even by its target audience.  In came Pratchett and Anthony and Jones, who were masters of subverting the tropes and making things very self aware and funny and that was what people started to read, because a good parody makes the reader feel clever because she⁴ gets the joke, and slowly but surely Parody killed the Fantasy Pulp Star.  And that was 2nd Wave Tolkien-Pulp.

Most⁵ of the Tolkien-Pulp on my shelves is 2nd Wave.  It's easier, more accessible, and more fun.  It's been a long time since I've read some good, solid, down to Erathia Earth 1st Wave Tolkien-Pulp.  And that's what Wytchfire is, on the surface, so when I heard Meyerhoffer was looking for readers I did so more out of duty than excitement.

But then I really started reading.

The Last Policeman by Ben H Winters - Review

I figured out how I can make footnotes work!  Having the numbers be a mouse-over works a lot better than linking to a footnote at the bottom, the HTML doesn't like me.  Also, I've started doing spoilers in white, if you don't care about spoilers highlight to read. 

Tracks for this Evening: Love 2012, The main theme from Melancholia, Everything is Ending, Until the End of the World, some zYnthetic, take your pick.  Oh, and while it doesn't fit the mood, I think everyone should listen to this at least once.  

Man, I love me some good detective fiction.  There’s just something thoroughly compelling about someone pounding the streets and using nothing more than his wits and charisma to get answers out of people who only sorta have to answer.  Thing is, in the words of Miss Mazeppa¹, you’ve gotta get a gimmick.  Eg, the detective is a sweet old lady², or a medieval monk³, or it’s set in England during the War Years⁴.  And what’s a better gimmick than the apocalypse? 

Our Primary Antagonist for the series will be measured in
Astronomical Units away. 

That’s where this week’s book comes in.  Written by Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman tells the story of a policeman solving a murder as the world prepares to end.  A few months ago, the world got the bad news:  Asteroid 2011GV₁, Maia, is hurtling towards the planet and there’s nothing that’s gonna stop it.  And so the human race threw up its hands and cursed the sky, and society started to crumble.  

Up Jumped The Devil by Michael Poore - Review

Tracks for the Evening: Up Jumped the Devil, Cry Little Sister, People of the South Wind, maybe a little bit of this cover of "Crossroad Blues".  Also, quite a bit of this.  Warning, light spoilers.

It’s the car that really won it for me. 

To explain:  In Michael Poore’s new rapscallion of a novel Up Jumps the Devil[1], the Devil is the classic, deal making, guitar playing, crossroads meeting Devil.  He’s got all the evil you’d expect of, well, the first person ever to shake a fist at the Lord God Almighty.  But he does bad with such style.  He smokes most things in the book.  He has sleazy love-affairs on live TV with Not!Miley Cyrus.  And he drives a Midnight Blue 1961 Lincoln Continental.

It's the one in front.

See, it’s easy to write an evil character.  You give him some puppies to kick, give her some orphans to smack, it’s easy.  What’s hard is writing fun, creative evil.  That said, Michael Poore’s Devil isn’t all that evil.  He’s not even sinister.  It’s more that he’s just very Chaotic Neutral[2].  He gives no real care to issues of ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ but more to things like ‘this is fun’ or ‘that guy’s an asshole.’  It’s a rather Blue-and-Orange Morality, and it does a great job of making the Devil a likable character.  But he’s also fairly deep too.  There’s a heavy undercurrent of sadness in him, a world weariness.  And quite a lot of anger.  After all, “he got kicked out of HEavEN! And had his true love stolen by GOD! And his true love had let him four different times and he hadn’t seen her for three hundred YEARS!”